“Wall, ’pears like the stage was held up on a mount’in road nigh here; the wust road in the country hereabouts. Thar wa’n’t no passengers but Sven Pedersen an’ Little Bodil; the long journey bein’ about to an end. That thar blizzard was a threatenin’ an’ the stage driver was hurryin’ his hosses, hopin’ to get over the mountain afore it struck, when up rode three men. One of ’em shot the driver, another of ’em dragged out a bag of gold ore; then they fired over the hosses’ heads. Skeered and rarin’, them hosses plunged over the cliff, an’ down that stage crashed into the wust gulch thar is in these here parts.
“Sven saw his little sister throwed out into the road. Then, as the stage keeled over, he jumped an’ cotched onto some scrub tree growin’ out o’ the cliff. It tuk him a long spell to climb back to the road. He was loony wild wi’ worryin’ about Little Bodil. He ran to whar he’d seen her throwed out. She wa’n’t thar. He hunted an’ called, but thar wa’n’t no answer. Then he reckoned as how that thar third bandit had whirled back an’ carried her off.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, how terrible!” There were tears in Mary’s eyes. “Wasn’t she ever found?”
The old man shook his head sadly. “Sven Pedersen follered them bandits afoot all night an’ nex’ day but they was a horseback an’ he couldn’t even get sight o’ them. Then the blizzard struck an’ he staggered in here, bein’ as he saw my light. Arter that he went prospectin’ all around these here mount’ins an’ he struck it rich. That cliff, whar he built him a rock house, was one of his claims.”
“I suppose he never stopped hunting for poor Little Bodil.” Mary’s voice was tender with sympathy.
“Yo’ reckon right, little gal. Whenever Sven Pedersen heerd tell of a holdup anywhar in the state, he’d join the posse that was huntin’ ’em but it warn’t no use, nohow. Bodil was plumb gone. Sven Pedersen never made no friend but me. His palish blue eyes allays kept that wild look, an’, as time went on an’ he piled up gold an’ turquoise, he got to be dubbed ‘Lucky Loon.’”
The old man paused and started to nod his shaggy gray head so many times that Dora, fearing he would nod himself to sleep, asked, “Mr. Harvey, what was his Evil Eye Turquoise?”
“Hey?” The old man glanced up suspiciously. “So yo’d heerd tell about that.” Then he cackled his queer, cracked laugh. “I heerd about it, but I’d allays reckoned thar wa’n’t no sech thing. I cal’lated Sven Pedersen made up that thar yarn to keep folks from climbin’ up ter his rock house an’ stealin’ his gold an’ turquoise, if be that’s whar he kept it. I reckon as how that’s the heft o’ that yarn an’ yet, I dunno, I dunno. Mabbe thar was suthin’ to it. Mabbe thar was.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, we’d like awfully well to hear the story whether it’s true or not, unless,” Mary said solicitously, “unless you’re too sleepy to tell it.”
The old man sat up and opened his eyes wide. “Sleepy, me sleepy? Never was waked up more! Wall, this here is the heft of that tale.”